 Was there ever something that was bothering you for years and you didn’t understand the origin? Was there ever something that was an underlying fear, like a low hum in the back of your mind that spiked up around certain triggers?
Personal wealth, money and finance was one of those fear factors for me. It took me until my late 30s to finally be aware, confront and take action on these issues. Below I’m sharing some of the mindsets and clear thinking that helped me realize, confront, and move past these issues. As Social Sector professionals we deal with money all the time. In our work, we are often managing multi-million dollar budgets, and may work with humanitarian organizations that manage billions. Many of my work projects in the past have supported humanitarian organizations like the World Food Program (WFP) that received $6 billion of contributions for food assistance in 2017. So we should be comfortable with managing our own personal finances right?
0 Comments
 The term ‘investor’ makes most social sector professionals cringe. It sounds like the private sector, it sounds mercenary, it sounds like people who work for banks. This word only enters our social sector dialogue when it’s related to a government investing in infrastructure, or an organization making an investment in training its people.
Social Sector Titans love the investor mindset. We apply it to ourselves and our work to move to the next level of service to the cause.  A few years ago I was talking to a friend who works for a Social Sector organization. He is in his mid 30s, athletic, confident and great at his job. However when I invited him to come with me to a networking event where organizational leaders would be present, he refused. My friend had a long list of reasons why it was not possible to attend the event:
“I hate networking.” “Those people are WAY above my pay-grade.” “I’d have nothing to say to those people. What would we talk about?” ‘Those kind of events make me nervous.” At first I was surprised at his reaction, but then I remembered my own struggles with overcoming a fear of hierarchy in the Social Sectors. Although I consider myself a free thinking and open minded person, hierarchy scared me.  Ten years ago I looked around in my career field and found no viable mentors. The people working at the higher levels of international disaster response organizations were dedicated, but many were stuck in unhealthy mental and physical patterns. Time spent in places like Sudan, Liberia and Guinea meant that many were dealing with undiagnosed post traumatic stress disorder. Others were, like me at the time, struggling with ‘vicarious trauma’ (a documented condition where caregivers experience psychological trauma symptoms through work with those who actually experienced the events). Even those more senior potential mentors who did not suffer from these aid worker issues were often struggling in other ways. Smart and competent at a moderate level, these professionals lived carefully within certain boundaries designed to guarantee job security and bureaucratic stability within their organization of choice.
 Avoiding burnout and maximizing impact during a humanitarian disaster and in your daily life
We all have passion. But passion is dangerous. Passion can get you killed. What if we had access to a new personal operating system that could put us on the next level of performance, to better serve disaster affected people and also make us happier, healthier and more effective? What if we had a way to become a ‘next level’ humanitarian performer? How do we become professionals who have the mindsets, strategies and tactics to advance the humanitarian principles and mission, in even the most challenging situations while also sustaining that performance over time?  Rejuvenating your mind and relationships through frequent, short duration adventures
How often have you heard frequent time-crunched complaints from your fellow Social Sector workers? I hear them often. Complaints often follow a similar pattern where work demands snowball into a rolling monolith that consistently destroys our ability to do other things. Some of my Social Sector friends will use recurrent themes in explaining why they do not have enough time for this consistent investment in themselves. “I’m too busy. I’m too tired, I’m focusing on work right now. This is a heavy time on my project, I’ll take time to get away later”. These are all unconscious scripts that I hear too, and that I’ve run through my own head when I’m feeling low on motivation and high on work focus.  No matter how good your big picture planning and micro systems for your day/week are, sometimes it all goes to hell. Things that you had delegated at work fall back on you to complete. Many important work projects are due at the same time that the kids get sick and the babysitter moves to a new city. Storms happen. Emergencies happen. Events outside of our control overtake our best plans and systems. So what then? How do we deal with this inevitable convergence? How to we survive and potentially also benefit from this storm?
Everyone has their own set of unique challenges; everyone can come up with their own sob story. For me and my family this happens a few times a year, most frequently in the final quarter of October to December when organizations and donors finalize humanitarian budgets and deliver big projects. This convergence also seems to correspond to the Atlantic Hurricane season. Here are a few mindsets, strategies and tactics to help weather the storm: |
Social Sector TitanHuman performance in the Social Sectors. Archives
August 2026
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed